A Futures Contract is a derivative product and is an agreement to buy or sell a commodity, currency or other instrument at a predetermined price at a specified time in the future. They are either physically settled or cash settled. BitMEX offers several of its trading products in the form of a Futures Contract with cash settlement.

Futures contracts do not require traders to post 100% of collateral as margin, because of this you can trade with leverage of up to 100x on some of BitMEX contracts. All margin on BitMEX is denominated in Bitcoin, allowing traders to speculate on the future value of its products only using Bitcoin.

The other derivative product BitMEX offers is the Perpetual Contract. To see futures contract information specific to each instrument, click on the Contracts tab at the top.

Settlement: How and when the futures contract expires, or settles, is important for traders to understand. BitMEX employs an averaging over a period of time prior to settlement to avoid price manipulation. This time frame may vary from instrument to instrument and traders should read the individual contract specifications to see when is expiry and the individual settlement procedure.

Basis: The basis refers to what premium or discount the futures contract trades at when compared to the underlying spot price and is usually quoted as an annualised %. Basis exists since futures contracts expire in the future and there is either a positive or negative time value element attached to that expiry uncertainty.